Catalina Botero, the special rapporteur for freedom of expression at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), said Friday that journalists in Colombia lack freedom of expression due to death threats and government spying.
In an interview with W Radio Botero argued that, "It is difficult to to say that there is freedom of expression in a country where the state intelligence agency has a few officials who systematically conduct espionage, stigmatization, and issue death threats against the people who are performing the heroic labor of informing the public what is going on in the country."
The IACHR official's comments refer to Colombian security agency DAS's role in the illegal wiretapping of journalists, judges, human rights activists, and politicians in Colombia.
Botero considers that the country is at a "point of red-alert,"and is close to being added to the list of countries where "you can barely say that there is freedom of expression," due to the level of threats faced by Colombian journalists,
Botero went on to explain that the IACHR has been in Colombia for the past few years and has "asked the [government] to stop stigmatizing journalists and human rights defenders."
The spokesperson recalled an incident in which a journalist received a threat saying that they were going to slaughter her daughter, describing the situation as "chilling."
Botero's comments come following the publication of an IACHR report on Thursday which included Colombia in a list of countries that need to improve their protection of human rights.
Responding to complaints about the lack of freedom of expression in Colombia, Carlos Franco, director of the presidential Human Rights Program, told W Radio that IACHR reports present Colombia under a very narrow lens, and do not take into account improvements the country has made in recent years.
The Colombian ambassador to the Organization of American States also criticized the IACHR reports on Friday, claiming that Colombia has done a lot to promote press freedom in the country, saying that "the recovery of the monopoly of force by the state and the weakening of organized armed groups outside the law, has meant that journalists have a new environment that facilitates the free exercise of their profession and the expression of opinion."
gringomedellin
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... I put the question to those at CR have you had issues with reporting , I understand that some journalist have bee threatened, but from this story it sounds wide spread with all journalist unable to work as they are to busy shaking in fear.................... |
Adriaan
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... The work as a journalist is more difficult, because you're not made to feel that you can work freely. We have never been threatened ourselves and I would be surprised if it occurred. The violent pressure really is on the reporters who work for local papers and radio stations. Large media corporations are threatened by the FARC, because they are "part of the establishment," but so far we have encountered some form of collaboration from authorities and the only thing that was hindering is that people are not used to the kind of transparency we demand. However, because of the wiretap scandal there is a great distrust among sources to talk to us, because they are afraid someone is listening in that could threaten their security, this really is a huge problem now and preventing us to perform journalism the way we are used to do it and to have the access to information we need to do our job normally. This really is a serious infringement on our right to gather information while guarding the anonimity of sources. |
gringomedellin
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... @ Adriaan so you feel in the past year things have gotten more difficult, I can undersatnd the fear of DAS listening in , watch means face to face meetings need to be done to prevent this, sitting in park talking it is harder to listen in then talking on a phone line or chat room, what I have found is largely Colombians are not use to being questioned about things, they want to know why you are asking questions, yet they will freely inquire about things without thought of why they need to know........... |
Adriaan
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... @ Gringomedellin. Exactly. When talking to authorities and asking critical questions they generally quite easily get grumpy. I interview Fajardo when he was still on his own campaign trail. His initial answers would be like the typical campaign answers, but if I'd say "but that was not my question, what I want to know is...: or a simple "but what do you mean by that? Can you be more specific?" generally turns people off. The Fajardo interview was never published because I felt that if I did I was only going to be used as a member of his campaign team without really informing the readers. |
Adriaan
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... Mind you, I have only been working here for two years now, so I can't say if it is better or worse than 8 years ago. The only thing I can say got worse for me is that of the wiretaps. |
gringomedellin
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... do ypou think the spying is still going on or has it truely stopped as people are being told??? |
